The Months before the Founding of Our Church

Father sitting front and center with early members in Daegu in February 1954; Rev. Hyo-won Eu is standing on the left.

The Months before the Founding of Our Church

Autumn 1953 - Spring 1954

From 1953, I began a seven-year course in order to make a fresh start in 1960. During those seven years, I set up all sorts of conditions. In the early days, we had churches in three places, Busan, Daegu and Seoul. Those three churches had to become one with me and on the foundation of that unity I had to proceed to fulfill indemnity conditions. I had to resolve Jesus' grief and resentment. Without doing this, restoration could not occur.

When I first began working to establish the church, I used to beg for food. I was in terrible circumstances but I wasn't ashamed. From the position of knowing Jesus' will, I knew that I would fulfill my mission to teach the central principles (Divine Principle) for the sake of the future, which in turn would ignite a fire in the hearts of countless young people.

Long ago, at a time when we were very poor, I wanted to see the members so much it was unbearable. I have feelings too, you know. At these times, I couldn't think about sleeping or eating, I couldn't be comfortable. I went to many train stations in order to meet people. I sought them out with a heart of longing that even exceeded that of a person who had gone to wait for their son or the one they love.

When I would arrive at those locations the person would be there waiting with a train ticket for me in their hands. Can you believe that? They would say they had received a revelation in a dream the day before, telling them certain things. Then they would ask where I was going that day. I have had many similar surprising experiences. The Unification Church was established on that kind of foundation. When times were hard, sometimes I had no money at all.

Hyo-won Eu joins in Busan

(December 24, 1953)

The admirable thing about President Eu was that he made notes of the whole of the Principle and shed countless tears with every page. Because he was an intellectual, as intelligent as a university student, he had tired himself out searching for the truth, so when he came, by chance, to know this deep reality, he didn't just shed one or two tears, it was like a waterfall.

The rapture you feel when you come near to the truth cannot be recorded without shedding tears. I heard that it took him a week to copy down one page of the Principle. So you can imagine how much he must have cried. The words of truth which could relate to the original mind have the power to make love explode in your heart and then explode again and that explosiveness continues.

President Eu's strong point is this: Even without having heard me speak, just from reading the Principle, by himself he stood with gratitude and pledged to become an eternal offering in front of Heaven. When I was lonely, I met that kind of person. This was God's work.

When did President Eu join the church? In 1953. That was the same as subjugating and restoring Cain from the satanic, Cain world... That's why I set him up as the representative. Although God knew that he was physically disabled, I made him the leader, and we started from there. President Eu was six years older than I was. John the Baptist was six months older than Jesus. From the Principled point of view, I had to think of him as being in John the Baptist's position. I started the Unification Church with President Eu.

God pours out His spirit in Yeongdo

(December 24, 1953 -- January 18, 1954)

I first met President Eu during a very serious time. I had been chased and persecuted; I then had come to Seoul in three stages -- from Busan to Daegu, and then to Seoul. This was restoration. I went to the very end of Busan to Yeongdo, which is the southernmost point and started from there.

When I started from Yeongdo in Busan, I was standing on the highest summit; it was in the most serious time of my life, so it was a time when I loved my co-workers, my brothers and sisters and the Korean people more than anyone else did. At that time I concentrated my whole self on realizing God's will. Also, in order to find one child, realize a family and restore the nation, God poured out His whole heart, soul and love. At that time I spoke while moved by God's love and heart. The words I spoke were not my own. It was as though God were using me as He would a microphone. Those people who came to our meetings then were all able to experience the spiritual world within a week -- not even a week. Many experienced the spiritual world within a few hours of listening to my speeches. It was as if the spiritual world were sending spiritual waves to the physical world. It was as if God were sending waves of love.

It took President Eu less than five minutes to go to the toilet and come back. He asked me to wait just five minutes and he ran to the toilet and he ran back. If I was serious, the others were serious, too. That stands to reason. If you have the absolute subject partner, the absolute object partner appears... and cannot leave.

President Eu was a simple-hearted person. His warrior spirit was strong, and he only knew how to go in one direction. He sat down with me and melted. All the people there were shown the kingdom of heaven. People like Hyo-mina had been led there by the spiritual world. After about a week, I came out and was crossing over the Yeongdo Bridge and I thought, "Is this what cars look like?" It felt as though we had been away for thousands of years and even though we had come home, we thought, Is this really the house I live in?

Severe persecution in Daegu

(first visit, December 2, 1953)

What always comes to mind when we speak of the history of the Unification Church in Daegu? It was the place of the most intense and severe persecution. If a place can be said to have rendered "distinguished service" in opposing the Unification Church, the number one place in this respect is Daegu, located in the middle of Gyeongbuk Province.

When I walked the streets, I did my best to take the back streets, the deserted streets, as a sinner who was not a sinner. It wasn't good for me to meet anyone. Everybody knew me in the back streets there. The established churches used to show my photograph to everybody, so wherever I showed my face, people used to shout, "There he is! That Mr. Moon is here!" There was such a commotion.

When the established churches learned where I was, they used to guess that I would be staying near one of the local churches, and from that church, they used to blow a trumpet every day shouting, "Kick out the heretic monster!" They caused such a commotion that the whole city was murmuring against me, wanting to expel me. It got so bad that I couldn't go anywhere in the daytime.

Daegu people are considered stiff-necked, aren't they? And once they make up their minds about something, they will never change, no matter what you do to them. Stiff-necked people are like that. Daegu was the gung-ho headquarters of the established churches. The Che-il [First] Church ministers were at the core of those opposing the Unification Church.

There was Deaconess Im's son-in-law. The world is very strange; his mother-in-law was attending our church, but he was extremely active in opposing it.

I have a lot to say about the city of Daegu. The reason I was able to survive and endured such extreme persecution was because I had such an unchangeable earnest desire and hope. What was the aim of that hope? It was to realize God's nation, guaranteed by God, which He had been trying to restore throughout the ages. This hope has also been that of countless religious people throughout history.

The land deserves to be cursed, but didn't God order Jonah to warn Nineveh? However, then Jonah went away, hoping for the destruction of Nineveh and was cast into the sea by God. Because I experienced love from God, who put Jonah in the whale's stomach, I was a young man who had the strength to say to God, if He were to tell me that He was going to destroy the city, "Heavenly Father, please forgive them just one more time. I will restore this city for You."

Moving thirteen times in a month

Why was Daegu such an enemy of the Unification Church? Thanks to one minister who complained about me, I saw a lot of Daegu. I had not had the opportunity to familiarize myself with their alleyways until I was chased from this alley to that alley. I thought that the Daegu church people were saying to me, "Research about our alleyways!"

There was one month in Daegu when I had to move thirteen times. Even so, I did not inform the Daegu church members where I was going.

The established churches were against me, and our members used to follow me around in large groups. It would have been all right if I had been silent, but the family members wouldn't let me. If I moved somewhere they would cry, "Where has the Master gone?" They prayed, shedding so many tears that even God thought it was a big problem. He would say, "Do you really want to meet Rev. Moon that much?"

"Yes! We really want to meet him!" Then He would say, "Okay, let's go!" and He would lead them to me.

They would come to my room and exclaim, "Rev. Moon is in here!" and they would open the door and just come into my room. That kind of thing happened time and again. Many times when they didn't know, God led them to where I was staying.

They thought with their hearts and just followed their feet. Their feet just led them to where I was. Their heads were not guiding them. What led them? Their feet! In Daegu many grandmothers had such experiences.

The crucial Abel - Cain foundation

I gathered a few members in Busan and started witnessing there, and then came up to Seoul via Daegu and Gimcheon because I felt the need to establish a foundation in Seoul. Around that time, I visited Elder Na's retreat and was chased away. From there, I came back up to Seoul and established the Unification Church.

From the position of the parent, it was not my role to take the lead in giving the blessing. I had to set up Cain and Abel, and then establish a foundation centering on having restored them. At that time, Un-mong Na and Tae-sun Pak were in the positions of Cain and Abel. They thought it was because they were special. Do you know that? A new movement had begun. They should have cooperated with each other and attended me. That is from the Principle. Cain and Abel, North and South, have to be connected. The North is the Eve-type and the South is the Archangel-type. So Dong-gi Pak represented the South and Seong-do Kim and Ho-bin Hoh represented the North.

God had prepared these groups, but all the spiritual groups had their own selfish ambitions.... They didn't understand that their purpose originated in God. So all these groups that pursued their own selfish interests inside the realm of metaphysical conception disappeared. God didn't set up the groups for Elder Na and Elder Pak for their own sakes.

In relation to this point, speaking of his environment, Jesus said, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." It was my destiny to experience almost the same thing in my life.